by Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Svāmī Mahārāja

A lecture delivered on 12th February, 1936 on the appearance day of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda in Śrī Gauḍīya Maṭha, Bombay

All scriptures proclaim śrī gurudeva to be sākṣāt-hari, non-different from the Lord, and this is acknowledged by all saintly persons. Yet this is because śrī gurudeva is also extremely dear to the Supreme Lord Śrī Hari, being His most confidential servitor (acintya-bhedābheda-prakāśa-vigraha, the inconceivable manifestation who is one with and different from the Lord). I adore the lotus feet of that śrī gurudeva, which are the abode of grace and auspiciousness.

Gentlemen, on behalf of the members of the Bombay branch of the Gauḍīya Maṭha, let me welcome you all, because you have so kindly joined us tonight in our congregational offerings of homage to the lotus feet of the world teacher, Ācāryadeva, who is the founder of this Gauḍīya Mission and is the president ācārya of Śrī Śrī Viśva-vaiṣṇava Rāja-sabhā – I am referring to my eternal divine master, paramahaṁsa parivrājakācārya Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Mahārāja.

Sixty-two years ago, on this auspicious day, Ācāryadeva made his appearance by the call of Ṭhākura Bhaktivinoda at Śrī Kṣetra Jagannātha-dhāma, Purī.

Gentlemen, the offering of such a homage as has been arranged this evening to Ācāryadeva is not a sectarian concern, for when we speak of the fundamental principle of gurudeva, or ācāryadeva, we speak of something that is of universal application. There does not arise any question of discriminating my guru from yours or anyone else’s. There is only one guru, who appears in an infinite number of forms to teach you, me and all others.

Śrī Guru – As Good as Śrī Bhagavān

The guru, or ācāryadeva, as we learn from the bona fide scriptures, delivers the message of the absolute world, the transcendental abode of the Absolute Personality, where everything non-differentially serves the Absolute Truth. We have heard so many times, “mahājano yena gataḥ sa panthāḥ – traverse the trail upon which the previous ācāryas have passed,” but we have hardly tried to understand the real purport of this śloka. If we scrutinize this proposition, we understand that the mahājana is one, and the royal road to the transcendental world is also one.

In order to learn the transcendental science, one must approach the bona fide spiritual master in disciplic succession who is fixed in the Absolute Truth.

Thus it has been enjoined herewith that in order to receive that transcendental knowledge, one must approach the guru. Therefore, if the Absolute Truth is one, about which we think there is no difference of opinion, the guru, also, cannot be two. The ācāryadeva for whom we have assembled tonight to offer our humble homage is not the guru of a sectarian institution or one of many differing exponents of the truth. On the contrary, he is the jagad-guru, or the guru of all of us; the only difference is that some obey him wholeheartedly, while others do not obey him directly.

“One should understand the spiritual master to be as good as I am,” the Blessed Lord said. “Nobody should be jealous of the spiritual master or think of him as an ordinary man, because the spiritual master is the sum total of all demigods.”

That is, the ācārya has been identified with God Himself. He has nothing to do with the affairs of this mundane world. He does not descend here to meddle with the affairs of temporary necessities, but to deliver the fallen, conditioned souls, or entities who have come here to the material world with a motive of enjoying by the mind and the five organs of sense perception. He appears before us to reveal the light of the Vedas and to bestow upon us the blessings of full-fledged freedom, for which we should hanker at every step of our life’s journey.

The transcendental knowledge of the Vedas was first uttered by God to Brahmā, the creator of this particular universe. From Brahmā the knowledge descended to Nārada, from Nārada to Vyāsadeva, from Vyāsadeva to Madhva, and in this process of disciplic succession the transcendental knowledge was transmitted by one disciple to another till it reached Lord Gaurāṅga, Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya, who posed as the disciple and successor of Śrī Īśvara Purī. The present ācāryadeva is the tenth disciplic representative from Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī, the original representative of Lord Caitanya who preached this transcendental tradition in its fullness. The knowledge that we receive from our gurudeva is not different from that imparted by God Himself and the succession of the ācāryas in the preceptoral line of Brahmā. We adore this auspicious day as śrī vyāsa-pūjā-tithi, because the ācārya is the living representative of Vyāsadeva, the divine compiler of the Vedas, the Purāṇas, the Bhagavad-gītā, the Mahābhārata and the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

Surrender to Śrī Gurudeva is Essential to Enter the Absolute Realm

Gentlemen, our knowledge is so poor, our senses are so imperfect, and our sources are so limited that it is not possible for us to have even the slightest knowledge of the absolute region without surrendering ourselves at the lotus feet of Śrī Vyāsadeva or his bona fide representative. Every moment we are being deceived by the knowledge of our direct perception. It is all the creation, or concoction, of the mind, which is always deceiving, changing and flickering. We cannot know anything of the transcendental region by our limited, perverted method of observation and experiment. But all of us can lend our eager ears for the aural reception of the transcendental sound transmitted from that region to this through the unadulterated medium of śrī gurudeva, or Śrī Vyāsadeva. Therefore, gentlemen, we should surrender ourselves today at the feet of the representative of Śrī Vyāsadeva for the elimination of all our differences bred by our unsubmissive attitude.

Understand that transcendental knowledge by offering your prostrated obeisances to the spiritual master who imparts such knowledge, asking him relevant questions and rendering service to him. Those who have direct perception of the Supreme Absolute Truth and are well-versed in the imports of the scriptures can enlighten you by instructing you on that science.

To receive the transcendental knowledge we must completely surrender ourselves to the real ācārya in a spirit of ardent inquiry and service. Actual performance of service to the Absolute under the guidance of the ācārya is the only vehicle by which we can assimilate the transcendental knowledge. Today’s meeting for offering our humble services and homage to the feet of the ācāryadeva will enable us to be favored with the capacity for assimilating the transcendental knowledge so kindly transmitted by him to all persons, without distinction.

Gentlemen, we are all more or less proud of our past Indian civilization, but we actually do not know the real nature of that civilization. We cannot be proud of our past material civilization, which is now a thousand times greater than in days gone by. It is said that we are passing through the age of darkness, the Kali-yuga.

Śrī Guru’s Divine Message is the Congenial Medicine for Suffering Humanity

Thus, while others were yet in the womb of historical oblivion, the sages of India had developed a different kind of civilization, which enabled them to know themselves. They had discovered that we are not at all material entities, but that we are all spiritual, permanent and indestructible servants of the Absolute. But because we have, against our better judgment, chosen to completely identify ourselves with this present material existence, our sufferings have multiplied according to the inexorable law of birth and death, with its consequent diseases and anxieties.

These sufferings cannot be really mitigated by any provision of material happiness, because matter and spirit are completely different elements. It is just as if you took an aquatic animal out of water and put it on the land, supplying all manner of happiness possible on land. The deadly sufferings of the animal are not capable of being relieved at all until it is taken out of its foreign environment. Spirit and matter are completely contradictory things. All of us are spiritual entities. We cannot have perfect happiness, which is our birthright, however much we may meddle with the affairs of mundane things. Perfect happiness can be ours only when we are restored to our natural state of spiritual existence. This is the distinctive message of our ancient Indian civilization, this is the message of the Gītā, this is the message of the Vedas and the Purāṇas, and this is the message of all the real ācāryas, including our present ācaryadeva, in the line of Lord Caitanya.

Gentlemen, although it is imperfectly that we have been enabled by his grace to understand the sublime messages of our ācāryadeva, oṁ viṣṇupāda paramahaṁsa parivrājakācārya Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Mahārāja, we must admit that we have realized definitely that the divine message from his holy lips is the congenial thing for suffering humanity. All of us should hear him patiently. If we listen to the transcendental sound without unnecessary opposition, he will surely have mercy upon us. The ācārya’s message is to take us back to our original home, back to God. Let me repeat, therefore, that we should hear him patiently, follow him in the measure of our conviction, and bow down at his lotus feet for releasing us from our present causeless unwillingness for serving the Absolute and all souls.

Śrī Guru Fully Develops the Rational Portion of Our Life

We have scarcely tried to give any food to the soul, which is distinct from the body and mind; therefore we are all committing suicide in the proper sense of the term. The message of the ācāryadeva is to give us a warning to halt such wrong activities. Let us therefore bow down at his lotus feet for the unalloyed mercy and kindness he has bestowed upon us.

Gentlemen, do not for a moment think that my gurudeva wants to put a complete brake on the modern civilization –
an impossible feat. But let us learn from him the art of making the best use of a bad bargain, and let us understand the importance of this human life, which is fit for the highest development of true consciousness. The best use of this rare human life should not be neglected.

This human form of life is obtained after many, many births, and although it is not permanent, it can offer the highest benefits. Therefore a sober and intelligent man should immediately try to fulfil his mission and attain the highest profit in life before another death occurs. He should avoid sense gratification, which is available in all circumstances.

Let us not misuse this human life in the vain pursuit of material enjoyment, or, in other words, for the sake of only eating, sleeping, fearing and sensuous activities. The ācāryadeva’s message is conveyed by the words of :

One is said to be situated in the fully renounced order of life if he lives in accordance with Kṛṣṇa consciousness. He should be without attachment for sense gratification and should accept only what is necessary for the upkeep of the body. On the other hand, one who renounces things that could be used in the service of Kṛṣṇa, under the pretext that such things are material, does not practice complete renunciation.

The purport of these ślokas can only be realized by fully developing the rational portion of our life, not the animal portion. Sitting at the feet of the ācāryadeva, let us try to understand from this transcendental source of knowledge what we are, what this universe is, what God is, and what our relationship with Him is. The message of Lord Caitanya is the message for the living entities and the message of the living world. Lord Caitanya did not bother Himself for the upliftment of this dead world, which is suitably named Martyaloka, the world where everything is destined to die. He appeared before us four hundred fifty years ago to tell us something of the transcendental universe, where everything is permanent and everything is for the service of the Absolute. But recently Lord Caitanya has been misrepresented by some unscrupulous persons, and the highest philosophy of the Lord has been misinterpreted to be the cult of the lowest type of society. We are glad to announce tonight that our ācāryadeva, with his usual kindness, saved us from this horrible type of degradation, and therefore we bow down at his lotus feet with all humility.

Shun the Empiricists

Gentlemen, it has been a mania of the cultured (or uncultured) society of the present day to accredit the Personality of Godhead with merely impersonal features and to stultify Him by claiming that He has no senses, no form, no activity, no head, no legs and no enjoyment. This has also been the pleasure of the modern scholars due to their sheer lack of proper guidance and true introspection in the spiritual realm. All these empiricists think alike: all the enjoyable things should be monopolized by the human society, or by a particular class only, and the impersonal God should be a mere order-supplier for their whimsical feats. We are happy that we have been relieved of this horrible type of malady by the mercy of His Divine Grace paramahaṁsa parivrājakācārya Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Mahārāja. He is our eye-opener, our eternal father, our eternal preceptor and our eternal guide. Let us therefore bow down at his lotus feet on this auspicious day.

Gentlemen, although we are like ignorant children regarding knowledge of the Transcendence, still His Divine Grace, my gurudeva, has kindled a small fire within us to dissipate the invincible darkness of empirical knowledge. We are now so much on the safe side that no amount of philosophical argument by the empiric schools of thought can deviate us an inch from the position of our eternal dependence on the lotus feet of His Divine Grace. Furthermore, we are prepared to challenge the most erudite scholars of the māyāvāda school and prove that the Personality of Godhead and His transcendental sports in Goloka alone constitute the sublime information of the Vedas. There are explicit indications of this in the :

To receive the mercy of Kṛṣṇa, I surrender unto His energy (Rādhā), and to receive the mercy of His energy, I surrender unto Kṛṣṇa.

The Secret of Śrī Vyāsa-pūjā

The plain truth so vividly explained in the Gītā, which is the central lesson of the Vedas, is not understood or even suspected by the most powerful scholars of the empiric schools. Herein lies the secret of śrī vyāsa-pūjā. When we meditate on the transcendental pastimes of the Absolute Godhead, we are proud to feel that we are His eternal servitors, and we become jubilant and dance with joy. All glory to my divine master, for it is he who has out of his unceasing flow of mercy stirred up within us such a movement of eternal existence. Let us bow down at his lotus feet.

Gentlemen, had he not appeared before us to deliver us from the thralldom of this gross worldly delusion, surely we should have remained for lives and ages in the darkness of helpless captivity. Had he not appeared before us, we would not have been able to understand the eternal truth of the sublime teachings of Lord Caitanya. Had he not appeared before us, we could not have been able to know the significance of the first śloka of the following:

Śrī Kṛṣṇa, Govinda, is the embodiment of eternity, knowledge and bliss. He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the controller of all lesser controllers, and the source of all incarnations. He has no beginning or origin, though He is the source of everything and the cause of all causes.

Personally, I have no hope for any direct service for the coming crores of births of the sojourn of my life, but I am confident that some day or other I shall be delivered from this mire of delusion in which I am at present so deeply sunk. Therefore let me with all my earnestness pray at the lotus feet of my divine master to allow me to suffer the lot for which I am destined due to my past misdoings, but to let me have this power of recollection: that I am nothing but a tiny servant of the Almighty Absolute Godhead, realized through the unflinching mercy of my divine master. Let me therefore bow down at his lotus feet with all the humility at my command.

Originally published by the Gauḍīya Maṭha

(Later published in The Science of Self Realization, copyright BBT and in Bhagavata Dharma, Śrī Gopinātha Gauḍīya Maṭha)